Solid hydrogen fuel could help shield satellites from radiation

British scientists are to send an experimental radiation shield made from a solid form of hydrogen fuel for testing on the International Space Station (ISS).

UK firm Cella Energy, a spinout of the government-funded Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, developed the material by combining solid hydrogen compounds with plastic fibres as a way of storing and transporting it more easily for use as fuel.

The researchers believe the material could make an effective radiation shield for satellite electronics because it absorbs high-energy radiation and is less likely than current aluminium shields to generate secondary particles that can disrupt equipment.

NASA is looking at high-hydrogen content materials as their shields,’ said Prof Stephen Bennington, Cella Energy’s chief scientific officer and the inventor of the material.

‘On the International Space Station, all the sleeping quarters have ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene slabs … The amount of hydrogen in our material is, by weight, 30 to 40 per cent higher.’

Aluminium is commonly used to protect satellite electronics because it is lightweight, strong, relatively cheap and can protect against high-energy radiation that degrades equipment and shortens the lifetime of the satellite.

But the radiation can also knock protons and neutrons out of the aluminium atoms’ nuclei, which can disrupt the operation of the electronic systems.

Materials with a high hydrogen content can offer similar protection against high-energy radiation but are less likely to generate these secondary particles because hydrogen atoms contain only one proton and no neutrons.

Samantha Rason, senior spacecraft radiation environment engineer at Surrey Satellite Technology, said: ‘The hydrogen content solution is a good one but it’s not been proven in space yet.’

The Cella Energy team are now preparing to test their material onboard the ISS by the end of the year, after winning a competition run by the US state funding body Space Florida.

The material is made from solid compounds containing hydrogen (hydrides) attached to polymer fibres using a process called electrospinning.

It was developed as an alternative to the compressed or liquid hydrogen used to power hydrogen fuel cells, particularly in vehicles. It releases the hydrogen upon heating to leave a solid waste that can then be recycled and regenerated with more hydrogen.

Bennington said that with modification the material could be particularly suitable for small Earth observation satellites in long, elliptical orbits around the poles as these tend to pass through the belts of charged particle radiation that surround the planet.

‘Our materials were not ever designed for this purpose,’ said Bennington. ‘They were designed to release hydrogen and be a power source. So we’ve had to modify them so they don’t release hydrogen at any reasonable temperature but they’re still flammable so we have to package them in a way that removes those issues …

‘We’ve already put it through what we call a “shake and bake” test at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory,’ he said. ‘They put it on a big vibration table to simulate the launch and then bake it out to see if it gives off any noxious gases that would kill off the electronics because it can get hot up there.’

The material is now undergoing even more rigorous testing by NASA in advanced of the trial onboard the ISS, where it will be used to encase a miniaturised radiation monitor based on technology developed by CERN for the Large Hadron Collider, and compared to a second monitor inside a polyethylene shield.

Bennington added that the material’s high energy density could potentially make it suitable as a backup power source onboard the ISS, although not for deep-space missions because of the need to recycle it.

Cella Energy is also applying for two Technology Strategy Board grants to support projects developing the equipment that delivers the material to fuel cells.

One is a system to pump pellets of the material into a vehicle in a similar way to how liquid petrol is delivered but with an additional vacuum cleaner-like mechanism to simultaneously suck used pellets out for recycling.

The second approach is to create cartridges of the material dispensed by magazines that can be easily transported, stored and slotted into a fuel cell system.

The company plans to remain a material supplier rather than a technology manufacturer but is working with partners to develop the delivery systems in order to create a market for its product.

This article originally appeared on The Engineer.

Startups need ambition to help British manufacturing grow

Too many of our new technology companies aren’t planning to manufacture in the UK. We need to do more than fund startups if we want to see a new British boom.

Britain is bursting with exciting new technologies. Forty of them, from liquid air-powered engines to fuel made from CO₂, were on display at the IMechE this week at the Cleantech Innovate showcase. And all the companies involved were making valiant efforts to overcome that great British problem of turning good ideas into profitable ventures.

The idea that Britain needs to rebalance its economy by growing its manufacturing export sector in order to create wealth and good jobs, has been drummed into us on a daily basis for over four years now. We need more entrepreneurs, we’re told, more investment in startup firms and more government help for new businesses.

All sensible ideas for tackling a genuine problem. However, if this week’s showcase is anything to go by, many technology startups are still struggling to attract the investment they need.

Everyone at the event had their own ideas as to why this is the case: investors and banks are too risk-averse, both since the financial crisis and in British culture in general; there’s a lack of technical expertise among investors and a lack of financial expertise among engineers; there’s too much bureaucracy in government schemes and too few tax incentives to invest in small businesses. One delegate even blamed a lack of ambition on the part of some startup firms to ask for the money they really needed to substantially build their businesses.

But even if the firms at Cleantech Innovate can access the money they need, this wouldn’t necessarily equal the new boom in British manufacturing output and jobs we’re hoping for. Many of the companies’ business plans involved licensing their technology, outsourcing manufacturing to foreign firms, or seeking a corporate buyout rather than building themselves into a big manufacturer.

You can’t necessarily blame companies for taking the non-UK manufacturing route. The nature of their technology and intended markets will help define the best way for them to commercialise and for some products it just wouldn’t make sense to build them here. Talk to ARM, whose chips are in mobile devices all over the world but doesn’t make any itself, or Dyson, a great British engineering success story that shipped its production abroad over ten years ago, and I’m sure they’d give you multiple reasons why these were the right decisions for them.

But there was something rather inspiring about the determination of one company at Cleantech Innovate, Libralato Engines, whose CEO made an explicit point of his desire to bring green manufacturing jobs to deprived parts of the country, and is presumably hoping some investors will respond to this emotional pull.

Other firms told me they would like to manufacture in the UK and plan to start by doing so but that it probably wouldn’t be sustainable in the long term. For many technology firms, Britain has the expertise and the supply chain to develop and build complex products in their early stages but high-volume costs, access to raw materials and the hassle of exporting can make it less attractive as the company expands.

But it often comes back to the issue of funding. Turning a small company into a big one can require huge amounts of capital, which banks just aren’t willing to offer at the moment. We’ve heard time and again that the government is leaning on the banks to get them lending but where’s the proof that it’s working?

I’m also increasingly inclined to believe that Britain is disadvantaged by its lack of a major multinational consumer/industrial technology player to compete with the likes of Siemens, Samsung and GE. If the banks won’t give you the money to expand then why not go to a company who can give you instant access to global reach? Unfortunately this will almost always mean ending up in foreign ownership.

If we want to see Britain increase manufacturing output and jobs on a large scale, and hold onto the wealth created by maintaining domestic ownership, we need to do more than just encourage startups. We need to make sure companies have the ambition and the ability to stay British and that our financial services sector is there to support them, not just make money for itself.

This article originally appeared on The Engineer.

Is it a teleporter, is it a hoverboard? No, it's a tap

As the world braced itself for the arrival of Dyson's latest invention, I wondered whether the hype really does British engineering any favours.

The Dyson Airblade tap: changing the world, one drip at a time.

A revolutionary piece of technology that could fundamentally change the lives of millions was unveiled this week.

James Dyson, widely regarded as the most brilliant engineer since Brunel, has finally solved the problem of having to walk between the taps and the dryer after washing your hands.

The new Airblade tap, which includes the startling innovation of combining jets of air with a traditional water faucet, is set to shave literally seconds from bathroom visits around the world.

Ok, enough sarcasm. But sadly that’s not too far from the real reaction much of the media gave Dyson’s new product when it was launched on Monday night. The coverage was so prominent and at times sycophantic that you’d think the man had invented nuclear fusion not a slightly different way to dry your hands.

In fact, the hype began well in advance of the unveiling. ‘Dyson new invention: What could it be?’ asked the Guardian website, setting off a wave of mildly interested speculation from a bunch of people checking the site because they were bored at work.

Unfortunately, all this build up around the launch of a new product from the company that previously brought you a vacuum cleaner and a fan was bound to lead to an anticlimax.

Dyson’s about to launch its latest technology! What could it be? A hoverboard? A teleporter? A perpetual motion machine?! No, it’s a tap. With a couple of little fans stuck on the side.

But it galls me that the most fussed-over invention of the last 12 months is a tap. A well designed, unusual tap that will probably make lots of money (each unit costs £1,000). But a tap nonetheless.This isn’t a criticism of Dyson, by any means. The company is full of talented engineers, designers and (obviously) PR people, and its boss is clearly an astute businessman. Congratulations to them all for their hard and successful work.

As readers of The Engineer know, there are plenty of fascinating and important new devices under development in this country. And yet the UK’s most famous engineer is a man who’s made middle class floors slightly cleaner.

I’m not convinced that most people buy into the hype either. The first reader comment on the Guardian’s blog cheekily pointed out that every Dyson product either sucks or blows. Which set the tone for pretty much the whole thread.

Then again, what else should I expect from a media that classes technology as anything with a pixel. That scrutinises every move of the latest Silicon Valley startups but cares little for the companies that actually employ larges swathes of the British workforce.

A quick look at the BBC News website shows there are just three stories on its technology homepage about traditionally engineered products, covering electric car charging, the (also much-hyped) Raspberry Pi computer, and – you guessed it – the Dyson tap.

I guess all that remains is to wonder what James Dyson might do next. As he’s reinvented the tap, I suggested he might have a go at doing the same for the wheel. But as The Engineer editor Jon Excell pointed out to me, he’s already done this with his ballbarrow.

I’ll just have to hold out for that hoverboard.

This article originally appeared on The Engineer.